Tag Archives: Gender equality

Mostly it were men who tried to decide what a woman was allowed to wear or not. In the past clothing was restricted by the views of the macho male society, where women often came on the second plane. Today there are still societies where women are paid less for the same function or same job. Equality is in many countries still not there.

A lot of men also consider a woman not yet able to decide for herself and therefore want to impose laws telling what women may not wear because otherwise they could be dominated by their own husband or family. By imposing restricting laws do they themselves not want to have enough power over women, and let others belief that really woman are not able to decide for themselves what religion to chose and how devout they want to be?

In a civilised society that claims to want freedom for all, freedom for religious thought and religious development should be allowed. We should not try to impose our religious ideas or morals to others and certainly when they are trying to be more dignified than the majority of the population which want to play with morals or not to take it so serious.

In our so called democratic free state everybody should have a voice which will be encountered with respect. Liberty should be given to each person to go on a search for spiritual and religious values. And we should know and respect that not all are on the same level at the same time. We should allow each person to be on his/her own personal spiritual and life journey.

Who has the right to impose our own ideas of spirituality and morality on other women and still claim that we live in a free world?

Today we listen to a 22 year old South African Muslim woman, (Sabeehah M.) who spent about 12 years growing up in Europe, as well as an additional 3 years there, pursuing higher education and residing alone in a different country to my parents and a opinionated and ambitious woman (Shaazia E.) who perhaps like dismantling stereotypes about women who wear lipstick, look at the burkini affair in Europe.

Shaazia E. finds that women have always been judged by what they wear and that we can find several times men staring and whispering about women. Concerning the Muslim and Western women she notes also that may people wonder of their upbringing and how their covering or non-covering says a lot about that upbringing or about their limitation brought on by religion or by others.

She also looks at what happened on the French beach

On Wednesday, the article circulating of three armed men forcing a woman to remove her clothes on a beach in France shocked people into a semblance of humanity (Well, most people anyway)

And said

Nobody should have to go through such humiliation and violation for the sake of their beliefs. But before we look at the French government with disdain, we need to understand that the amount of clothing a woman is wearing is not parallel to her morality.

The ladies point at a danger coming to Europe as well, the same we condemn in the East, but created also here a Fashion Police or a Moral police who can come to you to humiliate you in front of the general public. Or like some police officers came to ‘help’ to undress a woman because it went not fast enough according to their liking, perhaps they can beat her up as well?

woman’s modesty = subject dictated, controlled, judged, imposed by men, without including woman in the design, marginalising woman from the discussion, and without woman’s consent. {Look Out, It’s the Fashion Police}

we judge each other’s morals based on the amount of clothing we are wearing every day

women can never win.

in Islam women are supposed to act and dress modestly >>> But so should men

why is this expectation emphasised + even imposed on women alone?
A man should be covered from his navel to his knees in accordance with Islamic codes of modesty.
A woman should cover her hair and conceal her body shape, only revealing her hands, feet and face.

Women have always been judged by what they wear. In our society, the less clothing a woman wears the more she is considered immodest and indecent. A Muslim woman in shorts is a social pariah. Clusters of women or gatherings of men will stop and stare and whisper about her. She is looked at up and down. People wonder of her upbringing. People think because she is uncovered, she is immodest and has lower standards of morality. People have this odd assumption that women alone must behave modestly.

On Wednesday, the article circulating of three armed men forcing a woman to remove her clothes on a beach in France shocked people into a semblance of humanity (Well, most people anyway). I think what was the most striking was that the woman on the beach could have been us. It could have been me; it could have been you. It could have been…

“does not, however, provide evidence that the historical Jesus was married, nor does it prove that he was not married. The earliest reliable historical tradition is completely silent on that. So we’re in the same position we were before it was found. We don’t know if he was married or not.”

In the previous postings I mentioned already that when we look at the accounts of Jesus’ life in the Bible and the many non-religious writings of the early centuries, there is no mention of his marital status, while the accounts do mention Jesus’ mother, father and siblings.

Darrell Bock, a senior research professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminar said:

“There’s no indication we have that Jesus was married. One could say the text is silent on Jesus’ marital status because there was nothing to say.”

Bock agreed with the notion that the text fragment shared similarities with the Gnostic Gospels and said the text could be referring to a gnostic rite of marriage but

“it’s a small text with very little context. We don’t know what’s wrapped around it to know what it’s saying.”

“She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.” (Jeremiah 3:8 ESV)

“Abraham, Abraham!” So he said, “Here I am.” And He said, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him…” (Photo credit: -Reji)

God had made a promise to Abraham, that his seed would multiply and God would make a people for Him out of his descendants. God always keeps to His promises. One of them, at the beginning of human history,just after the foundation of the earth, was also that He would provide a solutionfor the sin the first man and woman (the 1° Adam and Eve) committed. There He indicated already His special relationship with the human beings, and planned for a son to whom He would give the throne to restore the paradise and bring to fulfilment the clean and safe Kingdom of God (the 2° Adam).

” And [Psa. 102:25-27 says “Thou, Yahweh/Adonay/Jehovah”], “Lord, in the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hand. (11) They will be destroyed, but you will remain. And they [i.e., the heavens and earth] will all wear out like an article of clothing. (12) And you will fold them up like a robe, and they will be changed like an article of clothing. But you will stay the same and your years will never end.” (13) But which one of the angels did God ever say [this] about [Psa. 110:1], “You should sit at my right side until I put your enemies [in full subjection] beneath your feet?”” (Heb 1:10-13 AUV)

“So [then], we [Christians] should pay closer attention to the things we have heard, so that we do not drift away from [believing and practicing] them. (2) For if the message spoken through angels proved to be binding [Note: This is a reference to the Law of Moses. See Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19], and every violation [of it] and disobedience [to it] received a just penalty, (3) how will we escape [punishment] if we neglect such a great salvation? [For it was] first announced [to people] by the Lord and then confirmed to us [i.e., the writer and other Christians] by those who heard Him [i.e., the original apostles]. (4) God also testified, along with those people, by [giving them] both signs and wonders and various miracles, and by [supernatural] gifts distributed [to them] by the Holy Spirit, as He desired. (5) For God did not place the coming inhabited world [Note: “The coming inhabited world” here probably refers to the present Christian age. It was viewed as “coming” from the perspective of Old Testament times], under the control of angels [and] that is the world we are talking about.” (Heb 2:1-5 AUV)

With regards to which of the angelic messengers “emissaries”, none where invited tocome to sit next to God, but His sonJeshua (Jesus Christ), who was first lower than the angels (remember God is, was and always shall be the Most High) was placed higher after his resurrection and invited to come to sit at the right hand of God to become a mediator between God and man. In case Jesus was God he could not be sitting next to himself nor take on the duty of mediator or intermediary. His position as arbitrator for man and woman would be of no value either when he would have been God and the end judge of it all. The third party has to be someone other than the principals who are involved in a transaction. In the Bible is also written that he would hand over the Kingdom of God to his Father. In case he himself is the same person as the Father there is no use nor any possibility to hand over the Kingdom to himself.

But in the text in front of us we hear about the world to come: the New World. The angels are ministering spirits, servants, with no royal dignity; having a subordinate role of serving God. God’s concern is not with angels, but with us, and He accordingly sends those angels or messengers of God, to bring help to those who will inherit salvation.

“And if children, then also lawfully-allotted ones, lawfully-allotted ones surely of God, moreover, lawfully-allotted-with the Anointed One, if- we -wholly suffer-with Him, in order that, we may also be given splendor-with Him.” (Romans 8:17 AS )

In the Old Times God shared His passion with His people, who kept stubborn and did not want to recognise the Promised One, the Christos, or Christ the Messiah. God placed Jesus in a higher position than His angels and by doing this God’s glory becomes Christ’s glory and finally, in measure, our glory also, because in him, Jesus Christ, we can be saved and become part of the Body of Christ. The apostle Paul brings some ‘with’ words in his 8° letter to the Romans (8:1-39), that testify of what we are and what we do jointly with Christ. There it is said the Anointed One should be from-within us, being lawfully-allotted ones, joint-heirs with the Anointed, even when we ourselves still dare to groan inside ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the ransom of our body, we may find not such an adoption, becoming children of God, but also finding the redemption of the body we still have here on earth. (In this world.)

God did not spare His own son Jeshua, but delivered him up for us all. (Romans 8:32) This Jesus is raised up, and is actually at the right hand of God, and makes intercession for us. (Romans 8:34) In the Old World the angels were in charge.

” Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold, And see the reward of the wicked. (9) For thou, O Jehovah, art my refuge! Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation; (10) There shall no evil befall thee, Neither shall any plague come nigh thy tent. (11) For he will give his angels charge over thee, To keep thee in all thy ways. (12) They shall bear thee up in their hands, Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” (Psalm 91:8-12 ASV)

” You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, (8) putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. (9) But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” (Hebrews 2:7-9 ESV)

We all share in flesh and blood, the same as the son of GodJesus Christ partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the evil, the adversary of God. For ages God’s People where thrown through and fro and often did not make a proper choice. Because of His great dissatisfaction god was not inclined any more to keep the bond of His ‘marriage’ with them alone. Too many times the Israelites were ill-disposed to their Creator. They often behaved unlawful and that hurtled the Most High in such a way that He allowed His son to provide a New Covenant, to deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery (Hebrews 2:15).

God renewed His bond or covenant with His son and with the Spiritual Israel, which had to become the Church of God, the Body of Christ where the Nazarene Jeshua (Jesus) would be the cornerstone, to bring the lovers of God close to Him and to put down the adversaries or hostile ones, their necks under his foot.

In his teaching period Jesus explained that some people may prefer to stay single “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:12). We should understand that by choosing celibacy to have more time to devote to proclaiming and living out God’s kingdom. They would find earthly responsibilities, such as those that go with marriage and parenting, a hindrance to their kingdom calling. This is similar to the situation of the disciples who were called away from their professions (fishermen, tax collectors, etc.) in order to follow Jesus with singular purpose. As I mentioned earlier such people consider themselves as married to Christ. They have taken Christ as their “bride“, like Jesus preferred to stay single and be the spouse or “wife of God“.

We always should remember that the Old Testament uses a lot of metaphors, and marriage is such one of them. Early Christians also used such metaphors to describe the relationship between celibate believers and Christ. Nuptial imagery is commonly used to describe salvation and heaven in the New Testament; and later Christian martyrs are sometimes called or portrayed as brides of Christ.

In the most difficult book of the bible, the apostleJohn describes in his vision the marriage scene in which the Bridegroom makes His Bride His wife. The ones who accept Christ as the son of God and their saviour may be glad and rejoice, and give honour now to him they wanted to follow and God raised out of the dead. He, the Lamb of God has now been taken up in heaven where the marriage of the Lamb took place. The ‘new’ wife of God or the wife for us in heaven has made herself ready in the presence of the one who is presented in fine linen, clean and white, like so many women their wedding dress. For the fine linen is the righteousness of saints, the ones who are set-apart from the world. The followers of Christ may become part of the new Israel, the new chosen people of God, though they might have been gentiles, they are now called righteous and also sons and daughters of God. We should know that blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb, Jesus Messiah. We all better listen to the true sayings of God. We best remember what He has done for us and whom He provided for us and how we should worship that only OneTrue God,the Father of Jesus, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

“Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; (8) it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. (9) And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” (10) Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Revelation 19:7-10 ESV )

The “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” a papyrus written in Coptic and containing text that refers to Jesus being married, is looking more and more like it is not authentic, research is revealing.

Conclusion

Professor King has devoted much of her scholarly career to making a case that the early church falsely constructed an orthodox understanding of Jesus that minimized the role of women. Back in 2003 she released The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle, in which she argued that at least some ancient texts pointed to Mary Magdalene as an apostle. In 2012 she told the writer for Smithsonian: “You’re talking to someone who’s trying to integrate a whole set of ‘heretical’ literature into the standard history.” {It’s Back — The “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” and the State of Modern Scholarship}

King saying

“it does not make sense that a forger with poor Coptic and scribal skills could also manage to acquire the right kind of papyrus and ink, and leave no ink out of place at the microscopic level.”

in her judgment may be right that “such a combination of bumbling and sophistication seems extremely unlikely” and that the world has a genuine old manuscript. But this does not mean it is a worthy “gospel” fragment or a sacred text.

King said.

“Is Jesus talking about a real wife, or the church, or a sister-wife? Who is the Mary—his mother, his wife, or some other Mary entirely?”

As I tried to explain in these 10 chapters is that we might understand it that when we would like to translate it with “wife” we should understand it to be a “woman” or female person in the bond of covenant-ship of being a pupil or follower of Christ.

What also might be important is that certain conservative ideas about the role of women in church herewith would be contradicted. If the papyrus fragment reflects religious writing copied from earlier texts, perhaps ones in the fourth century, it would speak to early Christian concerns about the role of the family in the early Church, which famously called upon its adherents to put aside family and civic loyalties, King suggests.

“This is not evidence that Jesus was married. We don’t know,”

Professor King originally interpreted the document as a debate about celibacy and had said:

“But early Christians were extremely interested in questions about whether they should be married or be celibate.”

Last month she added:

‘Now when I come back and read the fragment, it seems the major issue being talked about was that Jesus was affirming that wives and mothers can be his disciples,’ she said in an interview earlier this week.

The Harvard Divinity School writes:

If ancient, this tiny, damaged fragment provides tantalizing glimpses into issues about family, discipleship, and marriage that concerned ancientChristians. The main topic of the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples is one that deeply concerned early Christians, who were asked to put loyalty to Jesus before their natal families, as the New Testament gospels show. Christians were talking about themselves as a family, with God the Father, his son Jesus, and members as brothers and sisters. The particular focus in the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, however, is on women: his mother, Mary, his wife, and a female disciple. The disciples discuss whether Mary is worthy, and Jesus states that “she can be my disciple.” These signs indicate some controversy over whether women who are sexually active (mothers and wives) can be disciples of Jesus. Other early Christian writings defend marriage and reproduction against fellow Christians who think virginity and celibacy are required for all, or who argue that “women are not worthy of life.”

This gospel fragment provides a reason to reconsider what we thought we knew by asking what role claims about Jesus’ marital status played historically in early Christian controversies over marriage, celibacy, and family. The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife makes it possible to say that some early Christians believed that Jesus was married. This conclusion potentially has significant implications for the history of ancient Christian attitudes toward marriage, sexuality, and reproduction.

I agree with professor King that the papyrus may show that there were early Christians for whom …

“sexual union in marriage could be an imitation of God’s creativity and it could be spiritually proper and appropriate.”

For her the so-called ‘Gospel of Jesus’ Wife’ may have been thrown out

“because the ideas it contained flowed so strongly against the ascetic currents of the tides in which Christian practices and understandings of marriage and sexual intercourse were surging.”

This representation of Jesus as a man with earthly passions and needs has not survived in the doctrines of the established churches, which emphasise celibacy and asceticism as a spiritual ideal. We as Christians should remember how Jesus preached equality between man and how we all had to love each other becoming one, united. Men and women equally united in the lordChrist Jesus, having the bride Jesus, him married to spiritual Israel, the Church.

The John papyrus fragment (right) comes from the same anonymous owner as the Gospel of Jesus’s wife and has the same line breaks as a papyrus transcribed in 1924 (shown on left). The papyrus and Gospel of Jesus’s Wife have similar ink and writing styles, suggesting the latter is a fake.

Please find also of interest:

The ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ is Still as Big a Mystery as Ever
Given that King announced the discovery at a professional conference and immediately made preliminary test results and high-resolution photographs available to the world, it is difficult to know what she could have done differently. Certainly a more somber title—something in Latin perhaps—would have conveyed more nuance and garnered less attention, but getting attention for the discovery and the field was King’s aim. It used to be the case that papyrus discoveries were routinely announced on the front pages of the Times of London, but things have changed. It’s tough out there when you’re not a Kardashian, and a catchy title and clear message can go a long way. It’s rare for scholars to pass up the opportunity to reach a broader audience when the opportunity presents itself, even if that means giving up some precision.

Last week, the Harvard Theological Review released a much-delayed series of articles on the fragment. After a series of investigations undertaken by diverse scholars, the general judgment claimed by Professor King is that the fragment probably is not a forgery — or at least that it dates back to ancient times. The analysis suggested that the fragment dated from about four centuries later than Professor King had first suggested. This would place the fragment, if authentic, in the context of eighth-century Egypt — hundreds of years after the New Testament was written and completed.

The language used by the national media in reporting the story this time reveals the lack of confidence now placed in the fragment. The Boston Globe reported that the tests “have turned up no evidence of modern forgery,” but the reporter had to acknowledge that at least one of the scholars writing in the Harvard Theological Review insisted that the fragment is not only a forgery, but an amateurish effort. The New York Times ran a story that featured a headline announcing that the fragment “is more likely ancient than fake.” Note the uncertainty evident even in the headline.

“The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife? When Sensationalism Masquerades as Scholarship,”
One British newspaper notes that the claims about a married Jesus seem more worthy of fans of Dan Brown’s fictional work, The Da Vinci Code, than “real-life Harvard professors.” If the fragment is authenticated, the existence of this little document will be of interest to historians of the era, but it is insanity to make the claims now running through the media.

Determining the age of the ink using conventional testing methods would destroy the tiny document, roughly the size of a business card. Groundbreaking work by Columbia University researchers may soon uncover a way to date the ink without harming the fragment, which would offer a more definitive verdict about its authenticity.

‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ likely isn’t a modern forgery, scientists claimThe Vatican has previously said that the document is most likely a modern forgery, but scientists from Columbia University, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say their analysis strongly suggests that it is indeed part of an ancient manuscript and that it wasn’t edited or tampered with. The researchers used micro-Raman and infrared spectroscopy to analyze the composition of the ink, looking for clues as to whether it may have been applied after the original document was damaged.
“There is absolutely no evidence for that,” Timothy Swager, an MIT chemistry professor who worked on the project, tells the New York Times. “It would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible.” The researchers dated the fragment to between the sixth and ninth century AD, noting that it bears a strong resemblance to other texts from that era.

The ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ Is Real: What Now?As with all scholarly work on the ancient world, it seems impossible to ever fully resolve disputes over the text and its interpretations. This isn’t the last word on the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, but it is a fragment of understanding about how early Christians saw their savior.

King refutes those criticisms in a response in the journal, arguing that the grammar errors are misinterpretations by Depuydt. She also argues that writings similar to the Gospel of Thomas were then prevalent in the eastern Mediterranean, so words from that gospel would not necessarily be a sign of forgery.
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In the journal reports, a chemistry team led by MIT’s Joseph Azzarelli concluded that the age of the papyrus scrap matches that of a verified Gospel of John papyrus from antiquity. The team relied on microspectroscopy of the papyrus, which found the fragment only slightly less oxidized—aged by exposure to air—than the verified gospel.

Likewise, Columbia University’s James Yardley and Alexis Hagadorn looked at the pigments in the ink on the fragment. They found it similar to “lamp black” ink used on other ancient texts.

Our findings indicate that Laukamp was a co-owner of the now-defunct ACMB-American Corporation for Milling and Boreworks in Venice, Fla. Documents filed in Sarasota County, Fla., show that Laukamp was based in Germany at the time of his death in 2002 and that a man named René Ernest was named as the representative of his estate in Sarasota County. [Proof of Jesus Christ? 7 Pieces of Evidence Debated]

In an exchange of emails in German, Ernest said that Laukamp did not collect antiquities, did not own this papyrus and, in fact, was living in West Berlin in 1963, so he couldn’t have crossed the Berlin Wall into Potsdam. Laukamp, he said, was a toolmaker and had no interest in old things. In fact, Ernest was astonished to hear that Laukamp’s name had been linked to this papyrus.

At the same time, other papyri from the collection were tested for means of comparison. One of those was a fragment from the canonical Gospel’ of John written in a rare ancient dialect of Coptic known as Lycopolitan. A Lycopolitan version of John, which was first published in 1924, is now available online.
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Many people over the centuries have tried to work out a ‘bloodline’ for possible descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

Many historians agree that there is no historical, biblical, archaeological or genetic evidence to support the idea.

Once we started carbon-dating papyrus, forgers started using authentically ancient papyrus. Once we discovered how to identify ancient ink by its chemical composition, forgers started creating precisely the same ink.

Like steroids in sports, it’s safe to assume that the best bad guys are always one step ahead of the science.

And yet, the dating of the papyrus and ink did shift the burden back on to the doubters. And just this past week, they seem to have discovered something as close to proof as we can really expect in cases like this.
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Add to this the fact that the carbon dating of the John papyrus puts it in the seventh to ninth centuries, but Lycopolitan died out as a language sometime before the sixth century. No one wrote anything in Lycopolitan in the period in which this text would have to be dated.
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This forgery was detected not through lab analysis but through good old-fashioned humanities-based detective work. This was Sherlock Holmes, not “CSI.”

Just recently, Christian Askeland, a research associate with the Institut für Septuaginta-und biblische Textforschung in Wuppertal Germany, revealed new information that casts further doubt on the papyrus’ authenticity. His work is set to be published in the journal Tyndale Bulletin and is currently posted on a blog.

Askeland analyzed a second papyrus that, according to documents published in the Harvard Theological Review, was also purchased by the anonymous owner from Laukamp. It was presented to Harvard as a papyrus believed to be genuine.

Related articles

Centuries-Old Document Stirs Up Jesus Marriage Debate (fox8.com)
A newly revealed, centuries-old papyrus fragment suggests that some early Christians might have believed Jesus was married. The fragment, written in Coptic, a language used by Egyptian Christians, says in part, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …”Harvard Divinity School Professor Karen King announced the findings of the 1 1/2- by 3-inch honey-colored fragment on Tuesday in Rome at the International Association for Coptic Studies.

‘Gospel Of Jesus’ Wife’ Papyrus Is Ancient, Not Fake, Experts Say (huffingtonpost.com)
“The main topic of the fragment is to affirm that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus — a topic that was hotly debated in early Christianity as celibate virginity increasingly became highly valued,” King, whose specialties include Coptic literature, Gnosticism and women in the Bible, said in a statement Thursday. “This gospel fragment provides a reason to reconsider what we thought we knew by asking what the role claims of Jesus’ marital status played historically in early Christian controversies over marriage, celibacy, and family.”The legible lines on the front of the artifact seem to form a broken conversation between Jesus and his disciples. The fourth line of the text says, “Jesus said to them, my wife.” Line 5 says “… she will be able to be my disciple,” while the line before the “wife” quote has Jesus saying “Mary is worthy of it” and line 7 says, “As for me, I dwell with her in order to …”

The Great Debate: Death and Taxes Matthew 22:15-33 (whatshotn.wordpress.com)
Jesus has boldly claimed authority as Israel’s Messiah by His triumphal entry, His cleansing of the temple, and His possession of the temple for His teaching and healing ministry (Matthew 21:1-17). It is while Jesus is ministering in the temple that His adversaries, the religious elite of Jerusalem choose to challenge Him publicly, demanding that He declare the source of His authority for all He has been doing (Matthew 21:23).

did jesus kill himself (or, maybe, have himself killed)? (unsettledchristianity.com)
Famously, some liberal theologians suggest Jesus only submitted to the cross after his example was wasted on the folk. Or, some suggest he was the first martyr. Neither of this, I think, does justice to what I am going to propose in my new dissertation. If we allow for the moment that devotio means, in its simplest form, “self-sacrifice,” then we can allow for an exploration of suicide as a form of devotio even if the proper term is not used.

The revelation of Jesus that John saw and heard (correctunderstandingofshinchonji.wordpress.com)
The revelation that John saw, heard, and recorded is the revelation of Jesus Christ (Rv 1:1). Anyone who learns this revelation of Jesus is not learning from mere men; he is learning from Jesus and the angels coming in his name (Jn 14:26; Rv 10). This revelation contains prophecies and their fulfillment (Jn 14:29; Rv 21:6). The prophecies record the events of betrayal, destruction, and salvation (2Thes 2:1-3). The fulfillment of Revelation includes battles and the handling down of judgment (Rv 13; Rv 12). Revelation describes the war between God and the devil, and the battle between God’s promised pastor and the pastors of the devil (Rv 12).

Psalm 2 (The coming reign of Jesus on Earth) (disciplesofhope.wordpress.com)
the scenario of Psalm 2:2 shows that the rulers of the earth are aware not just of God but also about Christ his anointed One. It means that the around that time (which will soon come) most people will have the Gospel preached to them as a witness. So there will be some rulers who will try to go against the Gospel teachings.

The Bible backs same-sex couples: Point by point, why conservatives are wrong (salon.com)
If the essence of marriage involves a covenant-keeping relationship of mutual self-giving, then two men or two women can fulfill that purpose as well as a man and a woman can. But is lifelong commitment between two adults sufficient for realizing a Christian basis for marriage? Or is there something unique about heterosexual relationships that prevents same-sex couples from truly illustrating Christ’s love for the church?

While in Jerusalem some ultra-Orthodox women may have their growing desire fulfilled to meet the standards of beauty in the secular society that surrounds them – without compromising the religious requirement for modesty, in several Muslim countries women are more and more pushed in the corner, not having any opportunity to have some beauty adjustments or to have their brains filled with more knowledge.

In Israel we do find a third of Jerusalem’s Jewish population belongin to the ultra-Orthodox community, known for its stringent observance of Jewish religious law, or halacha. Its members are strongly committed to preserving tradition, often by remaining separate and distinct from Israel’s secular majority. Many of them demand male-female segregation in public places; are intolerant of exposure of the female body; censor photographs of women in their publications and advertisements; and believe that men should not listen to female singers as this may arouse lustful thoughts.

Second to Israel in its receipt of American foreign aid Mubarak’s corrupt and often brutal rule could survive for 30 years thanks to U.S. taxpayers. There the women a few years ago like in Lebanon could walk freely and have to work hard like their male counterparts. Only 18% of working age Saudi women are part of the workforce in their country where they are not allowed to drive a car. Saudi women earn an estimated $7,156 annually, while Saudi men made around $37,661 on average — one of the widest gaps globally.

Women made up almost half of the workforce last year, and yet were paid only 77 cents for every dollar men made. This wage gap varies considerably among states. Women in Maryland and Vermont, for example, make 85 cents for every dollar men make, while women in Wyoming and Louisiana make closer to 65 cents.

In many countries we see, like in Mali, that Low educational attainment is a major contributor to gender inequality. Although educational attainment is poor among both genders, Malian girls and women are less likely than their male counterparts to be enrolled at each level of education. This disparity worsens at higher levels of education. In addition to a wide gender imbalance, the country has recently had to deal with considerable internal unrest.

In many Islamist countries we can feel the ground shivering by Islamic extremists who took advantage of the instability in those countries where the people did not agree any more with their government. The uprisings or coups are used by the fundamentalist as an easy target to get their dreams spread.

Iran, standing on the 7th place of inequality, received some of the lowest scores in the world for its gender disparities in economic participation. In the country, where in the sixties girls ran in bikini and took on all sorts of high jobs, just 17% of working age women participate today, against the will of the Taliban. Estimated earned incomes differ considerably between both genders, as well, with men earning nearly five times what women do. Politically, the nation is male dominated: Just 3% of members of parliament are women, and men outnumber women in ministerial positions ten to one. A recent report from a U.N. representative noted 30 female presidential candidates were all ruled ineligible for the country’s presidential election due to their gender.

To talk about that inequality in the jurisdiction of a country, standard bearer Malala Yousafzai, who first came to public attention in 2009 after she anonymously wrote an affecting BBC diary about life under the Taliban, came to Brussels to give a voice to all those oppressed women in the world.

This courageous girl was at 15 shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in October 2012 because of her campaign for girls’ education in her country which after Nigeria has the second highest number of unschooled children in the world. As young as 11 Malala began blogging for the BBC’s Urdu site, she brought a convincing voice writing about her ambition to become a doctor, her fears of the Taliban and her determination to not allow the Taliban — or her fear — to prevent her from getting the education she needed to realize her dreams. She got on television, where we could see the Taliban men standing behind at the wall, annoyed but not knowing what they should do. Her television debut in Pakistan was quickly followed with more opportunities to give women a voice in the East. She became a well known figure in Pakistan, but also a target for the Taliban who are totally against the woman having a voice at all.

The attack on her, a shocking act on a child (against Koran teaching) catapulted her to international fame. Today we still can see the damage in her face, caused by that dramatic assault, in which a militant boarded her school bus in Pakistan’s north-western Swat valley and opened fire, wounding two of her school-friends as well.

The attack on Malala exposed not only the dark side of an army unable to provide security but also the abysmal quality of education in Pakistan. Only 2.3 percent of its gross domestic product is allocated to education. Pakistan spends seven times more on its military. According to a recent U.N. study, 5.1 million children are out of school—the second-highest number in the world—and two-thirds of them are female.

“Malala doesn’t want to play to some western-backed or Taliban-loved stereotype. She shows us that there are voices out there, in Pakistan, that need to be heard, if only to help the country find democracy that is for and from the people, all the people.”

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States says:

“We have a national lie. Why do we have to tell the truth to the world?”

“The national lie is that the Swat Valley has been liberated from the bad Taliban. Young Malala and her father mess up that narrative.”

Schoolchildren around the world voiced their support for Malala after she was shot

The Taliban almost made Malala a martyr; they succeeded in making her a symbol.

“Hers was the voice which made us consider that indeed, there can be alternatives, and there can be resistance to all forms of tyranny. Today, the attempt to silence that voice shall only make her stronger; the blood stains on her school uniform shall only feed the conviction that as long as there is breath and life, there shall be struggle.”

The story of her slow recovery, from delicate surgery at a Pakistani military hospital to further operations and a programme of rehabilitation in the UK, has since been closely tracked by the world’s media. Named one of Time magazine’s most influential people in 2013, put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize and has reportedly secured a $3m (£2m) book contract for her life story.

The memoir she is writing to raise awareness about the 61 million children around the world who are not in school indicates she accepts that unasked-for responsibility as a synonym for courage and a champion for girls everywhere. However Malala concludes her book, her story so far is only just beginning.

Two organizations representing private schools in Pakistan have banned her book, ‘I Am Malala’‎ from more than 40,000 schools across Pakistan. According to them the book is an insult to Islam and shows Malala herself to be nothing more than a tool of the West.

“The federation thought we should review the book, and having reviewed it we came to the decision that the book was not suitable for our children, particularly not our students,”

said the federation’s president, Mirza Kashif.

“Pakistan is an ideological country. That ideology is based on Islam…. In this book are many comments that are contrary to our ideology.”

Once again we see how the Pakistan government is pulled from one site to an other and how it is under Taliban dictatorship. The leaders of an important sector of the Pakistani educational world has chosen to ban Pakistan’s best-known and most loved proponent of education, not just in Pakistan, but all around the world.

Despite the largely secularist policies and intentions of Jinnah, Pakistan is still under the thumb of the holier-than-thou men in beards and turbans, men who always know more than anyone else, even the best educated, who are always closer to God than anyone else, and who reckon they know how to put their fingers on apostasy and unbelief wherever they rear their ugly heads. Even if they don’t raise their heads, the mullas can always make them up.

Now after her near-fatal attempt to silence the 15-year-old, she is more dangerous to Pakistan’s status quo than ever before and the Taliban is still trying to get her silenced. The world is willing to give this girl a voice and recognises what she has done for womanhood. For some it is very difficult to understand that gender equality may drive development (rather than the other way round).

Fatima Bhutto for The Guardian wrote on Wednesday 30 October 2013 on Malala Yousafzai’s fearless and still-controversial memoir:

In Arabic, “revolution” is a feminine noun. This is fitting, as without women revolutions are sterile. They have no movement, no life, no sound. Urdu, a distorter of tongues, pilfering as it does from Persian, Hindi, but largely Arabic, uses the masculine word for coup d’etat – inqilab – for revolution, rather than the accurate feminine: thawra. Perhaps that’s why the Taliban were confused. Perhaps that’s why they imagined that shooting a 15-year-old girl would somehow enhance their revolution.

From her book we can also see how dangerous it can be when there is no power fairly shared among the provinces of a country. there is not only the deepening ethnic imbalance so profound that only an extraordinary common enemy could distract from it. The burgeoning power of the Taliban in today’s Pakistan should not be much of a surprise to those who understand, as Malala does, the need to redress these ethnic wounds.

After she got got the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought she did not leave Belgium to leave it like it was before. Next she continued to speak in the parliament at the congress of the WIP: the Women in Parliaments Global Forum (from 27-29 November 2013). At that meeting is looked at reshaping society through female leadership; female empowerment for peace, security and integrity; impact of elected women in parliaments; fight against corruption; delivering on gender equality; gender studies in academics; and the use of technology and women’s political participation.

The intention of the summit is to consider the position of the woman in our society and how she can play a role in the development of the economical and political field of a country. Those countries bridging the gender gap will also receive awards for their leadership in this important task.

Related articles

Leonard Pitts: Malala Yousafzai’s courage (miamiherald.com)
You may not listen to music or sing. You may not read. You may not leave the house except under certain strict conditions. You may not watch movies or television. You may not aspire. You may not learn.These are the strictures the Taliban seeks to impose upon women and girls in the places it infests, including the Swat Valley in Pakistan. And when she spoke against those strictures, when she gave interviews and wrote a blog asserting her right to learn and to be, Malala Yousafzai made herself a target of those men, one of whom boarded her school bus last October with a gun and asked, “Who is Malala?” None of the girls spoke, but a few glanced toward Malala and the gunman had his answer. He raised his pistol — it was a Colt .45 — and fired three shots. One bullet went through a girl’s hand. Another ended up in a girl’s right arm. And one went through the socket of Malala’s left eye.

Malala, Pakistan, and Israel (algemeiner.com)
She has been given enough prestigious awards to last her several lifetimes, and may well enter the Guinness Book of Records for their sheer number. She has been received by the U.S. President and the Queen of Great Britain, by Prime Ministers, and innumerable dignitaries everywhere. She has spoken to the General Assembly of the United Nations. No matter where she goes, people listen to her. She talks of peace and education, and her message goes deep. Instead of silencing her, the Taliban turned her into a megaphone to trumpet aloud the emptiness of their philosophy.You would think the Pakistanis would love her to bits, and, of course, large numbers of them do. She’s bigger than all the Qawwali singers put together. Her name is everywhere. One day, she could stand for the post of Prime Minister. And God help the Taliban if that day ever dawns.

The creation of a Malala (maheshwarigangadhar.wordpress.com)
The title of the autobiography, I am Malala itself indicates that the main idea is to present people with a photograph of the girl and tell them that she is Malala, with nothing else being revealed. She is the girl who spoke against the Taliban, but not the only girl; a fact that the world has not been enlightened with. Idolising her father, and with an interest in politics, Malala today is the West’s role model of what a young, school-going, oppressed (by Taliban) girl would be, if she ever spoke up and made herself evident to the world. She becomes a commodity through which the West can maintain an argument of international relations with a prosperous outcome and likewise.

Girls’ education in Pakistan – Malala Yousafzai (libraryeuroparl.wordpress.com)
During their brief rule over the SwatValley, the Taliban destroyed more than 400 schools. More than half of these were girls’ schools. They argued that women (and girls) should stay in the home. The European Parliament stated in a 2012 resolution that violent extremism in Pakistan continues to impede the rights of girls. Since the government regained control of the region in 2009, it has rebuilt most of these schools, but there is still high inequality: there are 717 primary schools for boys, but only 425 for girls. Talimand Khan, from a Pakistani think-tank, adds that along with the number of schools, the quality of education has to be improved, too; some Pakistani religious representatives stated in interviews that girls should not receive the same education as boys, but be prepared to become ‘obedient’ wives and mothers.

Inspiration or danger? Private schools in Pakistan ban Malala Yousafzai’s book – The Independent (independent.co.uk)
Yet in Pakistan, the reaction to Malala and her book has been mixed. Many have claimed she has been used by the West for its own interests. The Taliban threatened to attack bookshops that stocked it.Mr Kashif, who said 25 million pupils attended private schools in Pakistan, claimed that in the book Malala had defended the writing of Salman Rushdie on the grounds of free speech and had failed to use the abbreviation PUH – “peace be upon him” – when referring to the prophet Mohamed. He said there was a sense that Malala had not written large parts of the book, because it referred to things that happened before she was born.Observers say the ban comes amid discussions in Pakistan about Malala’s actions. It also follows recent controversy at a celebrated Lahore private school that started teaching sex education.

Education is a right, not a privilege. (laurenradmer.wordpress.com)
The most valuable gift any person can receive is an education. In many African and Asian countries, women are discouraged or even forbidden from obtaining an education, in an attempt to spread male dominance and keep women ignorant. Many of these countries, including Pakistan, impose force and violence against women. According to a documentary created by the Department for International Development titled “Afraid and alone: Violence against women in Pakistan”, a woman in Pakistan is raped every two hours, 4,500 women experienced violence during the first 6 months of 2009, and roughly 1000 women are murdering in “honour killings” each year.

Malala (exploredreamexamine.wordpress.com)
From my perspective, the gender gaps in women’s education Malala discusses are far closer to home than Pakistan is. As a student at an all-girls school that focuses on educating girls, I’m lucky. Girls don’t fall under the radar here as much as in co-ed schools, but are encouraged to take math, science and subjects typically considered to be “male- dominated.” But both in schools and in the workforce in the US, this is still a problem. Women are still paid less in the professional world, even when equally qualified as their male counterparts. Girls still are expected to be “worse” in math and science. Often stereotypes dominate our culture so much, it is hard to remove them.

Women need a voice and a seat at the table (theguardian.com)
This week, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK (CPA) will bring together parliamentarians from around the world to discuss the post-2015 development agenda, with a conference on gender equality and women’s empowerment.Part of CPA’s work is aimed at empowering women leaders. This is about tackling a basic injustice, but it’s also critical to making the best, most informed decisions about poverty.
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While most international leaders are happy to make a broad commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment, they have been too vague on the detail of what should be done and how. It is imperative that countries commit to specific, measureable outcomes, because, in the words of Hillary Clinton: “What gets measured gets done.”

Why Gender Equality Is Not Just About Equal Rights (theage.com.au)
Women of the world: pack your warmest sweaters, and head immediately to Iceland.According to a newly released report from the World Economic Forum [pdf], Iceland is the No. 1 country in the world for gender equality, for the fifth year in a row. And that equality is helping propel Iceland and its fellow Nordic nations to new economic heights. Turns out, the smaller the gender gap, the more economically competitive the nation. Even when that nation is totally freezing.(The report puts Australia at 24th place on the gender gap index, just below the United States but below Burundi, Cuba and New Zealand. Australia has moved up in the ranking one position from last year, but that’s not so good when compared with the No. 15 ranking achieved in 2006.)

Gender Equality and Equality (aclarioncallforgenderequality.wordpress.com)
he’ and ‘she’ they both have quality,
they both have ability
so we should prefer gender equity and equality….!

Women and/or men who choose to remain at home to look after their children face a torrent of prejudice.

Motherism or fatherism

Dr Aric Sigman, at a conference convened by Mothers At Home Matter warned of the rise of “motherism”; a prejudice against stay-at-home mothers, but for the same matter he could also have spoken about the stay-at-home fathers.
The “motherism” he is talking about could as well be called “fatherism” which is as dangerous for the men as the “motherism” is for the women. Both puts women and men off being stay-at-home parents, which is the developmental ideal in the present society.

There is not only a prejudice against stay-at-home mothers, also fathers who decide to spend some time off work to have more time with the kids are scammed.

There is a presentation of women who look after their own children full time as air-headed, spoilt and dowdy. However, there is also a prejudice against women who look after their children but aren’t dowdy (yummy mummies); women who go back to work after having had children; women who stay out of work but also employ nannies; women who work part-time and look after their children the rest of the time.

Wanting to stay home

In Belgium that answer would be clear: No body would dare to say they would like to stay at home to take care of the kids. The few who say that they would prefer to stay at home are looked at and considered to be the weaker elements of this society.

Our youngsters will have to work already until 67 before they can retire, but will only receive retirement allotment for the days they really worked to earn money, over their full career. The kids brought up in a one child family did not learn to share and do not want to share much with others. Many of them do not even find a reason why to marry when it is easier and with no strings, just to enjoy sex without any commitments.

The after babyboom generation with other aims

From the previous articles you can make up that today moms are different from those of the baby boom generation. They are not only more likely to have gone to university, they also want to realize their assets. To convert their knowledge into cash they are more likely to work full-time, less likely to have more than two children, and less likely to be married than previous generations.

In the United States, Pew Social Trends revealed that, from 2008 to 2011, the number of new mothers (women between the ages of 15 and 44 who have given birth in the past 12 months) with less than a high school diploma declined 17%, and the number with only a high school diploma went down 15%. By contrast, the number of new mothers with some college education fell by 6%, and the number with a bachelor’s degree or more fell by just 1%.

Marital status depending upon educational attainment

Although less educated women are a shrinking share of all new mothers, less educated women still have a higher average number of births throughout their lifetime than more educated women. By the end of their childbearing years, women without a high school diploma have on average 2.5 children, and women with a bachelor’s degree have about 1.7. This gap has closed only slightly over the past 25 years.

There are significant differences in the marital status of new mothers depending upon their educational attainment. While about six-in-ten (61% in 2011) women with less than a high school diploma are unmarried when they give birth, this share declines to only 9% among women with at least a bachelor’s degree. {Record Share of New Mothers are College Educated}

Experts have identified a strong linkage between child well-being and maternal education levels. On average, a mother with more education is more likely to deliver a baby at term and more likely to have a baby with a healthy birth weight. As they grow up, children with more educated mothers tend to have better cognitive skills and higher academic achievement than others. It is difficult to determine whether maternal education is causing some of these outcomes, or if it is serving as a proxy for some other causal factor (for example, economic well-being). What is irrefutable, though, is that on average the more education a woman has, the better off her children will be.

Working as hard as ever, but not at home

Moms are working as hard as ever — but they’re spending more time in offices than at home; as a result, moms and dads are more similar now than ever. For most of the 20th century (and before), parents specialized. Dad worked for money. Mom worked at home. But as female education increased — and mid-century technology made housework less time-intensive — moms and dads became less specialized. More moms worked more for money. More dads worked more at home.

At the moment we still may find many families where mothers are much more likely to do the “dirty work” of child care while fathers are more likely to spend a greater share of their time playing with kids or doing home maintenance, like mowing the lawn. But it’s a closing gap, whereby we have developed to a society where the household jobs are considered the ‘dirty jobs’ or jobs to be done by the uneducated and not useful persons. Being a mother or a father, staying at home is by many considered as profiting of the society and not done.

Social media fakes

Illustration of Facebook mobile interface (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today it is just not done to become a parent or not to be able to show off with all the material wealth we can get today. Instead of spending time to create a real family people prefer to have a virtual circle of friends on Facebook. On Facebook a nice world is presented where the lives are consistently full of happy and wholesome family outings, when there are kids in the house, but mostly it are kidless photo-shoots of far away places with ever changing girlfriends or men.

Allison Hart, who says she loves her children, and who has also learned that motherhood is a series of shocks and disappointments, disgusting things under her fingernails, horrifying smells and constant irritation, writes:

In between those smiling moments are thousands of other moments which go undocumented on Facebook.

We all want to share our best moments. We all want that person we knew 22 years ago and haven’t seen since to think that we are living the life. We aren’t bored. We haven’t watched 13 hours of TV today. Our kids are as charming as they are cute so I’m never, ever jealous of your child-free globe-trotting life. The world can wait! Right now I’m doing the most important and fulfilling job a person can. Oh, and that one picture of me that I’ve posted within the last three years? That old thing? Gosh, I think the kids must have snapped that one while I was composting our garden. Yes I do that in silk and heels. Duh.

Preferring not to tell

Many mothers and fathers dare not to to say the things that most mothers and fathers have thought, but few have had the courage to admit. Telling others to chose for motherhood or fatherhood is like throwing oneself in front of the lions or facing the jaws.

The ones still daring to become a mother would like to become hyperefficient, which makes them only to fail in their made up world. They suddenly want to do everything at once. Some may learn to delegate, prioritize, negotiate and, when necessary, take the wrong choice to give up seeing friends, hoping to get themselves more time with their partner — hardest of all — sleep.

In one survey Katrina Alcorn posted for working parents, 88% of the nearly 500 respondents said they had suffered stress-related health problems (like anxiety and depression) since having kids and going back to work. One woman told her that at the peak of her working-mom stress, she started having seizures at night.

Most hostile country in the developed world for working parents of all income levels

Alcorn writes:

Studies like “The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict” explain that America may be the most hostile country in the developed world for working parents of all income levels. Low-wage workers contend with rigid schedules, no paid time off and a lack of affordable child care, while professionals are often expected to work grueling hours and travel for business. Although we experience the problem in different ways, the result is the same: chronic stress.

To be sure, this is not only a women’s problem. As men become more involved at home, studies show that they too are struggling with work-family conflict. And often they work longer hours than women do. But mothers still do more housework and child care, even when both parents work. Mothers multitask more than fathers and enjoy less leisure time than fathers. And mothers experience more guilt about working full time than fathers do.

Showbizz kids

Jerusalem-born 32 years old Natalie Portman revealed that she loves being a mother and has learned to be less judgmental in the years following the birth of her son Aleph, two. She had to accept that parenting is an individual endeavour with no real rules of engagement.

‘I love being a mum,’ Portman said. ‘I’m less judgmental than before I had a kid. The biggest thing about parenting is that it is a totally different experience for every person.

‘Everything is cool, there are no rules – I mean, apart from not hurting your kid. Some people breastfeed until their babies are five, and some don’t breastfeed at all.

Showbizz people do not mind letting the world know they want some time to spend with their children. From those actors and actress it is accepted they may take sometime for their children. People are willing to give them some basic support to meet their competing obligations. But for ordinary folks the competitive world have created an impossible situation.

Young having to take care of the older ones

Our society if it is going to have enough young people to work for the payment of elderly their retirement and the non-active population, shall have to review her stance against married couples, parents and parenting.

We do not claim that it is better that women don’t work. They do have to play their role as well as the men and should be able to share the same duties. that means that men also should become equal to the women, and should also have to do tasks people considered a few years ago only for women, now also to be done by men.

Equality of gender a coin with three sides

The equality of gender should go both ways. the population has to give everybody the right to make their own choice about work and leisure? Everybody should be allowed to choose how much time to spend at a job and what to do in the unpaid sector, be it voluntary work or household work.

Related articles

College Education – Talking It Out With Your Folks (degreesinusa.wordpress.com)
the rising costs of getting college education can be daunting for some parents to bear. If your parents were not able to save for the day you have to go to college then it will be all bad news. That is why before you set your sights on getting post-secondary education, it is best to consult your parents about your decision. Here are some great tips that you can use in order to convince your parents that getting a college education can immensely make your life better.

No more apologies (inadifferentvoice.co.uk)
Instead of being able to identify with any positive model of what I’m currently doing with my life, I frequently feel obliged to delineate all of the things I am Not. Granted, in small stages, and in comparison to the enormous inequalities of the world, these niggles are a drop in the ocean. I move on with my colossal buggy to face the tuts of another innocent childless pedestrian. It is only when I stop and consider the bigger picture, or talk to other parents, that I find that it is the experience itself which is mind-numbingly pedestrian. To be a SAHM mum is to be a disparaged vacuum.
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I find perspective in unexpected places; conversations with older women for example who have highlighted that in their day it was the working mums who faced approbrium (thanks Norma), or from men who want to be more involved but feel childcare is still left in a box reserved for women.
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Feminists are fairly agreed in their critique of the 1950’s housewife model (despite that many women couldn’t afford not to work anyway), yet it seems to have swept over the fact that despite six decades of development, much of the actual work of the SAHM remains unchanged. I cook, bake, organise activities, tend to children, shop and clean (for visitors, sometimes). I do many housewifey things. But when I look to feminism for positive reinforcement of that, I often feel there’s just a dark swirl of snarky remarks, lack of understanding, and an image of Audrey Hepburn in a flowery frock, shrugging vacantly.

Dr Sigman, a fellow of the Society of Biology and associate fellow of the British Psychological Society, has argued in the past that evidence about the long-term effects of sending very young children to full-time day care is being ignored because of a political and economic agenda.

Addressing a conference organised by the Mothers At Home Matter group, he said that evidence from biosciences showed that mothers provided “unrivalled benefits” to young children that other people, including fathers, cannot.
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Many working families see “full time” parenting as a luxury enjoyed only by those wealthy enough to live on one wage or those on benefits.

Dr Sigman, who has four children, said that the derogatory attitudes towards stay-at-home mothers appeared to be the result of a mix of political and economic agendas.

“I suppose the older feminism, liberal-Left feminism, has ended up a strange bedfellow with Right-wing capitalism.”

Comment: In pursuit of gender equality and work-life balance (sbs.com.au)
Sociologists have spent decades looking at work-family conflict and the stress associated with combining work and family roles. The bulk of the research identifies which individuals report the most work-family conflict. Not surprisingly, they find that women, professionals, people who work longer hours and people with greater workplace flexibility are more likely to say family conflicts with work.This research, of course, validates many of our experiences. Yes, there is gender inequality. Yes, people in professional positions struggle with balancing work and family roles. Yes, your boss can hear your toddler harassing the kitty while you are on the phone. And, yes, these are real problems that deserve real solutions.
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in the most gender-equal societies, such as Sweden, Norway and Finland, this pattern changes. Fathers in these countries are the most likely to report family interferes with their work life than are mothers or individuals without children.So what gives? Why are Swedish dads having such a hard time? We suspect that Swedish men may not be able to opt-out of childcare responsibilities while at work like men in lower gender-equality countries because they have an institutional structure that encourages gender equality.

“Superwoman: Can Today’s Women Have It All?” (katelynbudroe.wordpress.com)
The history of women working outside the home began when women entered the workforce during WWII. Men went to war and vacated jobs which required a labor force. In a world where the average housewife did not work outside the home a marketing campaign ensued. The U.S. government lured women with the iconic symbol of “Rosie the Riveter” with the underlying message that it was their patriotic duty to work. After the war when men returned to their jobs there was a new social shift in America and a new generation of women. America had to contend with a new playing field as women’s outlooks and attitudes toward work were born.
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In real life there are far too few women among the highest ranks of the professions, and millions of everyday women struggle to make ends meet and to juggle work and family.
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The increase of women working outside the home has caused an increase in divorce rates. During the recession when many men lost their jobs, women were able to find work quicker than men. This is usually attributed because men could not find jobs that paid them the same salaries as they had before they lost their jobs and women were filling jobs at lower wages. The realization by women that she can be a good provider may be an indication that a working wife will choose divorce over and unsatisfactory marriage. But the reverse is equally probable. Financial problems cause tension and often play a key role in ending a marriage. The lack of two incomes forces men to stay home and sometimes causes a rift in a marriage as the gender roles are reversed and men feel less competent and is no longer the provider. For married women it is difficult to maintain a happy marriage as she becomes the primary breadwinner and more independent.

Why “Working Mother” Is A Redundant Term, Part 2 (sarahsiders.com)
When one of my best friends, someone who vigilantly linked arms with me in our efforts to empower women, decided to leave the workforce and stay home, we both had some philosophical wrestling to do.
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Being a stay-at-home parent sounded impossible. In fact, my day job felt like an escape. I got to run off into my area of competency all day, got to look knowledgeable and pretend to be “the expert”, with opportunities for acknowledgement for all my contributions.
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So back to the “working mother” business. This term has got to go. It not so subtly implies that stay-at-home moms like my friend aren’t working, that they are just sitting there catching up on 30 Rock episodes while their Roomba vacuums and a nanny totes the children about to various activities. Hardly.

Motherless Mom. (tdawneightyone.wordpress.com)
For me, there are no words available that will allow me to convey what it is like to be a motherless daughter. It means something different at every stage in my life. Hope Edelman wrote in her book “Motherless Daughters” about wanting to shout to everyone that her mom died because it sums up so much of who she is and I get that. The only thing that has impacted me greater than losing my mom at the age of 15 has been becoming a mom myself.

Breastfeeding. Women have been doing it since the beginning of human history, though the practice has gone in and out of vogue many times since then. For some women, it’s harder now than ever to take on the task.

“There is definitely a very clear understanding in our society … that breastfeeding is absolutely best for babies and mothers,” said Diana West, media relations director for La Leche League International, a mother-to-mother breastfeeding support organization that formed in the 1950s.“The problem is mothers understand that intellectually but then the baby is born and they have difficulty.”

Lessons in Feminism, From my Father. (thisclimbingbean.wordpress.com)
It was the mid-80s. We were Anglican Church-goers, and the idea of women in the priesthood was not new, but it was by no means widely accepted, especially not in our small West Australian diocese. My father was a deacon by then, having assisted as a lay person during services for some time. But even though women did help in the service occasionally, and were involved in other areas of the church family, they were not in leading roles.Yet my father didn’t go into any of this. He simply told me that if I wanted to be a priest, then I could. By the time I was grown up, he suggested, there might be lots of women who were priests.
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once he had showed me that the world could certainly use more strong women, and that I could be one of them, he would turn this around on me. I’d bring home a report, I’d do well in a competition, and he would shrug, then say, eyes twinkling, ‘Yeah, it’s alright I guess. For A Girl.‘Because he could throw that line at me now, knowing that I got the joke. It’s not that others had moved beyond that attitude, that prejudice. It still existed. It still does. But it was his way of pushing me, and of praising me without having to say the words.

In the industrialised countries sometimes we can not help to get the impression that women are still more than once looked at as a lust-object.

Until the second half of the 20th century, women in most societies were denied some of the legal and political rights according to men. It has taken a very long time before women got the right to vote and to have their say in the house, community, village, city, country. In many industrialised countries the women got interesting positions but are not yet equally paid and do have to prove themselves twice as hard than the men. They may be allowed to share their thoughts and may have gained significant legal rights, we still can not neglect that women still do not have equality with men. This is evident at home, at their workplace, and in society in general.

In the 1890s when gender role reversals could be caricaturized, the idea of an aggressive woman who also smoked was considered laughable. In 1929, Edward Bernays proved otherwise when he convinced women to smoke in public during an Easter parade in Manhattan as a show of defiance against male domination. The demonstrators were not aware that a tobacco company was behind the publicity stunt. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The traditional role of man was to work and make money, which would be used by all in the household. The traditional role of the woman was to stay at home, take care of the children, clean the house, and cook. Because society has always associated money with power, the person bringing home the money had the power. The man often made the final decision on all household matters because he had the money. Women were treated like they were property of men, with no voice about their own fate.

In many countries there are still more job offers for men and is it still easier for a man to climb the social ladder. A man can have both a family and a successful career whereas women who want to fulfil themselves as professionals have to sacrifice their personal life in most cases or, if they choose to have a family as well, they are sometimes regarded as bad mothers because they do not allocate 24 hours a day to raising their children.

Our society takes it for granted that the woman should take care for the children. The woman is made to take care of her own personal life and as a mother, she also has to take care of her children´s life. Lots of man still want to keep up their ‘higher position’ and look down at women who want to step onto the ladder of progress and a better position in business. On the other hand others do find the women who stay at home are lazy and are not willing to contribute to the welfare of the family, where the man should be the one who has to decide everything and the wife only has to follow his will. but many of the contemporary society do not see that the person wanting to stay at home to take care of the children and the household should not at all be idle. the important task of bringing up children looks to be one of the most neglected tasks of this age. Women will always be important to society because they bring a sense of love, and emotion, and for this reason at least, society should start considering their situation more carefully.

Our society has to become more aware that there is no superior or inferior person. We are all the same, created in the image of God the Divine Creator, so to consider that women are not as good as men is very wrong. Only to give women lesser roles to play in our society is not showing the full respect the woman deserves. We also should teach children that women can not be inferior just because they’re not men. Typecasting also can be a very dangerous sport. Women can do whatever a man can do and parents should let male and female children swap duties and play with the toys they would like to play with. In case a boy wants to play with puppets or dresses they should allow them, but should never try to impose on those children that because they prefer to play with puppets, that they would be gay.

Lots of gender problems we encounter today are provided by the specific typecasting of women’s and men’s roles, in the previous years. It is our willingness how to look at women and men which is going to decide how people are going to treat others, also those who have a gender complexity or gender questions. The role of women in our society may have changed significantly and positively in the past three decades, but we still may find that girls are pushed by their parents in certain fields of study. Though we must be honest, in countries like Belgium, women do receive many opportunities and are challenged in all sorts of fields which fifty years ago were considered male jobs. A minus point in Belgium is that for several jobs done by women, they are still paid less than men, and that should be corrected.

Women and girls may have many more opportunities and face different challenges today, but often men leave them behind with the children, creating very difficult situations to avoid poverty. When we consider 60% of the average national income and the inability to receive enough income to pay for rent and living costs to be the poverty line than we notice that 14.7% of Belgians live below the poverty line, and that 22% of the women face poverty. Today Belgian industry should shame itself that it is possible that bakeries can ask 2,65€ for a brown loaf of 600 grammes whilst the person is only receiving 822 euros per month for singles and 1,726 euros per month for a couple with two children. Who can live on such a low income when we have to face rents of 750€ to 1200€ for a small flat?
In Belgium, one in seven people have to do with less! Increased energy prices and rising rents and housing affect our purchasing power and especially people with low incomes are there to suffer.

Risk factors for insecurity and poverty include divorce, economic dependence on a ( new ) partner, very low skills, long-term unemployment or weak employment situation, a debt mountain, old age. Retired persons are having it more difficult to cope and are not allowed to earn much extra or they loose their retirement premium. Because women are still living longer than men, they are the worst victim in that poverty range.

That there is still gender inequality we can see at the number of single mothers who take more than 80 % of single-parent families. Female heads of households are at high risk to be below the poverty threshold. After all, they accumulate the problems of struggling families where there is only one breadwinner with the weaker socio – economic position of women and the inefficiency of the social protection, such as inadequate protection of the unpaid care work and too limited compensation for the cost of children.

Married women staying at home form a larger and hidden group under the insecure women. Because of the generalization of the two-earner position the double income has become the average income welfare standard. The shrinking number of working women at home without income or benefit concentrates more and more among the low-skilled women with several children and by parents who made the choice that it is more important to have a spiritual upbringing than a material upbringing. For these women the benefits of a professional job outside the house do not outweigh by the accumulation of work and family responsibilities. Moreover, their lack of education and work experience and their economic dependence on a partner makes them a particularly vulnerable group .

Older single women are affected by the income -based pension. The wage gap against women in the labour market and by an incomplete career as a result of caring for children and relatives, many women receive in retirement hardly the statutory minimum. The fear of not going to receive any allotment making it possible to live properly when retired makes that many women do not want to take on house-duties, and prefer to have their children placed in childcare, while they can create a better and often a more than necessary income for the family.

The legal form that it is not necessary to have the marriage bond of man-woman, but that people can choose either to have a same gender matrimony or a looser living-together or cohabit contract, where people can more easily and legally swap partner, makes the position for the female person even weaker. We only can observe that in the end it seems in most cases the women are left with the children.

In the new-constituent families with the same sex parents, we can find similar questions coming up for whom is going to be the one who takes care for the behavioural education. They also will be looked at by others when one of the partners chooses to take care of the children and to give them special personal love and that extra education the schools are not providing any more.

An example of a stay at home dad and kids. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The number of stay-at-home dads began gradually increasing in the late 20th century, especially in developed Western nations. Though the role is subject to many stereotypes, and men may have difficulties accessing parenting benefits, communities, and services targeted at mothers, it became more socially acceptable by the 2000s, but now it starts loosing interest again because it becomes financially more difficult to survive when there is only one person working in the household.
There are now financial ramifications in deciding whether the mother or father should become the stay-at-home parent. In cases where the woman is the higher-paid parent, it makes more economic sense for her to continue to work while the man takes on the caregiver role.

With the growth of telecommuting, many men are also able to work from home. this made that either the woman or the man can work at home and be there for the children. Differences in parent‘s schedules can also account for some of the stay-at-home dads. Sometimes the father works odd work shifts while the mother has a typical nine-to-five work schedule.
Some retired males who marry a younger woman decide to become stay-at-home dads while their wives work because they want a “second chance” to watch a child grow up in a second or third marriage.

The choice of one of the partners, be it a man or a woman to stay some of the time or most of the time at home, is not looked favourably by the present generation. Those who make such a choice often have to face a very negative attitude from the society around them.

The patronizing attitude taken on by many, makes it difficult for many parents to choose for bringing up their children with the Law of God and getting them to know the Word of God.

Those families who do find it important that their children feel the warmth of a caring family, finding a parent at home when they return from school, receiving that extra information about the Higher Being, are confronted with the negative attitude of our contemporary society for the ancient ‘woman role’ of ‘housewife’, or the contemporary position of ‘houseman’.

It is true that, when we want to be a Christian family, we shall have to make the choice of diving our time between, work, school, leisure time and worship time. This will demand economical sacrifices, but there we should consider what would be the more valuable. Shall the ability to go twice or three times abroad on holiday, having the newest generation of i-phone or tablet, bring happiness?

When we want to be a Christian family should we keep to conservative role patterns? No, Christians also should evolve with time and should be aware of the possibilities they can get to work together as equal partners creating a safe home-ground for their children. They also may look at the Old and New testament examples of how women and men divided their task between each other.

The conservative Christians who do find that women do not have to play any part in decision making and/or in teaching the Word of God, should look better at the many examples given in the Holy Scriptures where women proved a very good asset in the upbringing of children and teaching them the Word of God.

Because that Word of God does not receive enough attention any more in our regions we as parents shall have to make choices and shall have to divide the duties at home to create enough opportunities for both partners to develop professionally well, and to develop as partner and parent, trying to create a place where the Word of God can receive the appropriate place. To succeed in such matter, financial sacrifices shall have to be made, as well as the making of the choice who will spend time at home with the children when. The father as well as the mother should each take some duties in the household and man also shall have to accept that the woman also shall work at the spiritual well-being of the child.

Recalibrating the poverty line (blogforarizona.com)
Our definition of poverty, Schwarz says, was calibrated in the 1960s and it’s in need of recalibration. Then, food was a third of an average family’s budget, and the poverty threshold was set at 3 times the cost of an adequate food diet. Today, food is one-sixth of an average family’s budget, but the poverty line is still set at three times the cost of buying food for a family.The poverty line is set at $23,500 for a family of four. According to Schwarz, it should be closer to $41,000.

Who’s Job Is It Anyway? (transnationalplanning.wordpress.com)
how much women were able to thrive in an environment where the men were somewhat “absent”, that is to say, they were not engaged in the affairs that these women were tackling for whatever reasons. Patel & Mitlin stated: “Most of the most powerful women leaders came from among the lower-income and most socially disadvantaged neighborhoods, in part because in these areas the man had given up.” It was amazing to see the role that these women were playing in their communities. Without them, who knows how much worse things would be for their families.
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Perhaps what we need is not a clear demarcation of what each respective gender should be capable of doing but rather the unhindered opportunity for anyone to be able to address a need. This needs to be an approach accepted by both men and women. In a symbiotic relationship, each member does what is necessary because all will benefit from it. No one stands on ceremony and debates or dictates roles. It just gets done.

The disease of poverty is a doctor’s business everywhere (janeparry.wordpress.com)One fifth of Hong Kong’s population lives below the official poverty line. This was set for the first time in September 2013, at 50% of median monthly household income before tax and welfare transfers.Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita GDPs in Asia and ranks 11th globally, yet its Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, indicates it has the worst income disparity in the developed world. The announcement of the poverty line and that there are 1.3 million people living below it has been big news in Hong Kong, but it hasn’t generated the sense of righteous outrage that such a statistic should.

The Shocking New Study On American Children In Poverty (davidmixner.com)
In America, 22.5% of our children live below the poverty line. That is also one out of every four children! That comes to 16,400,000 children living without their basic needs of food, shelter, clothes, education, etc being met by our society.

Women, Indigenous Australians identified in poverty report (abc.net.au)A 10-year study has found Australia’s most disadvantaged are more likely to be women, Indigenous, and have health problems.To coincide with national poverty week, researchers at the University of Canberra have released a study which tracked 900 people for a decade, who were identified as marginalised in 2001.

The study found 60 per cent of those identified by the study as marginalised in 2001 had escaped those conditions by 2010.

New Book Shows How to Curb Intergenerational Poverty (prweb.com)A new book, Parent Power: The Key to America’s Prosperity, by Dr. Jack Westman reveals the power parents have to create America’s productive citizens. They also have the power to create social problems in the context of intergenerational poverty.Dr. Westman calls attention to the fact that one-third of children and youth in the United States are failing in some aspect of their lives. The United States is at the top of the list of developed nations in child abuse and neglect and the bottom in educational achievement.

Five children die every day from abuse in the United States. Three million referrals are made to child protective services every year.

When gender inequality is good economics (globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com)
While we know that individuals, economies and societies would benefit from gender parity in the long term, gender inequality is often a perfectly rational choice for individuals in the short term.
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Gender imbalances, and their resulting economic consequences, are still startlingly visible everywhere, from the developed world to emerging markets.

Many Evangelical Christians today claim that we ought to defer to the tradition of the Church when faced with difficult matters such as the status of homosexuals in the community of faith or the nature of the atonement. We can see a lot of changes in the position of the public against homo couples. In the polls worldwide we can see attitudes have shifted over time. In 1988, the two-thirds of white Americans for example, believed that “sexual relations between two adults of the same sex” was “always wrong,” including 85 percent of born-again Christians. By 2010, both groups began to accept same-sex relationships. Born-again Christians still opposed homosexuality, but they answered the questions the same way non-believers answered in the 1980s. In 2010, two-thirds of evangelicals believed that homosexuality is “always wrong,” compared to just 30 percent of others.

John Piper’s church. Also see here (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Evangelicals may also differ on the role of the women in their community. Most of them affirm male headship in ordain­ing men only to pastoral ministry, but they also practice male headship in the way that they carry out the other dis­cipleship and teaching ministries of the church. So male headship characterizes both ordained and non-ordained minis­tries in the church.

In the catholic and Protestant religions we do find that many are convinced that only qualified men are ordained to the pastoral office (hierarchy in principle), and women do not teach Christian doctrine to men (hierarchy in practice). John Piper‘s position:

“Men should bear primary responsibility for Christlike headship and teaching in the church. So it is un­biblical . . . and therefore detrimental, for women to assume this role” (John Piper and Wayne Grudem, “An Overview of Central Concerns: Questions and Answers,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 60-61).

This hierarchy in both principle and practice reflects a certain interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12, an interpretation that Douglas Moo ad­vocates in Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood:

“We think 1 Timothy 2:8-15 imposes two restrictions on the ministry of women: they are not to teach Christian doctrine to men and they are not to exercise authority directly over men in the church.” {Moo, “What Does It Mean Not to Teach or Have Authority Over Men?,” 180.}

While most of the young reformed evangelicals are closing ranks around traditional, conservative views of biblical inspiration and author­ity, some in the emerging church are re­vising and moving away from the same. One can hardly envision reconciliation on the gender question as long as the two groups continue on these radically divergent trajectories.

John Piper describes practices of Pas­tor Mark Driscoll who allows women to teach and lead men within the minis­tries of Mars Hill Church, as “detrimental” to the life of the church. {John Piper and Wayne Grudem, “An Overview of Central Concerns: Questions and Answers,” 61.} Nevertheless, these two men in particu­lar share a basic commitment to comple­mentarian principles and have enough common ground in their shared vision of the gospel to cooperate in endeavors such as “The Gospel Coalition,” a gos­pel renewal movement that confesses a strong complementarian position.

Priscilla Shirer who’s marriage appears to be just the sort of enlightened partnership that would make feminists cheer, avoids using words like “feminist” or “career woman” to describe herself. She is an evangelical Bible teacher who makes her living by guiding thousands of women through the study of Scripture in her books, videos and weekend conferences — in which she stresses that in a biblical home and church, the man is the head and the woman must submit.
She steers women away from the “feminist activists” who tell women to do their own thing. does a woman has to go out of the house and find a ‘proper’ job to bring more money in the family till? Can the woman make up her own decisions or is tit that she let a man “slow her down,” as she puts it?

For her it is clear that it is an evil demon, called “Satan” who “will do everything in his power to get us to take the lead in our home.” She forgets to see that satan just means any adversary or evil within, and according to the Bible is not a sort of monster which shall bring people into his realm were people shall be tortured for ever.

Shirer and many conservative Christians believe that the Bible defines gender as a divinely ordained set of desires and duties inherent in each man and woman since the Garden of Eden. Gender is not an act or a choice, but a nonnegotiable gift. To these Christians, the story of Adam and Eve’s creation granted man authority over woman, and they understand the New Testament teachings of Paul and his comrades — in particular, that wives should submit to their husbands — not as cultural relics of the first century but as universal teachings that Christians apply today.

Cover of Women in Ministry: Four Views

In the industrialised countries we see sexual liberation has saturated the general culture and brought most citizens away from the church-institutions, but also away from the Holy Scriptures. Many people took the attitudes and sayings of churches as actions of men of God. They took their conclusions when they saw so many wrong goings by the clergy. In the meantime mainline churches are ordaining women and homosexuals, conservative evangelicals are escalating their counter-offensive.

To critics, “complementarian” is code for sexist patriarchy, a license to keep women muzzled and homebound. Yet spending even five minutes with Priscilla Shirer and her husband suggests that reality is far more complicated — not only at home but also in the new “separate sphere” that this theology has spawned: a subculture of Bible studies, conferences, ministries, religious retreats and literature ranging from Christian fitness books to Christian romance novels, all produced by and for evangelical women.

Those who think the woman may not teach about the Word of God should look at those persons who opened their houses and got people in to listen to them. There we found in the first home-churches active women who not only taught their children but also their servants. The woman of the household was the person teaching becoming the authority. Since the parent is already the authority, as God intended it to be from creation, there should be no problem in women teaching doctrine to their own children. but they had to remember that the husband would always be the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, but he is also subject to his Father, the Only OneGod. Like Jesus follows his Father, man and woman who say they are followers of ChristJesus the Messiah, should follow Jesus.

The wives when they are in subjection to their own husbands should not have to bow to every other man and have to follow what they say. those wives also had to follow first the Word of God, like for every body it should be the Law of God which has to be followed in the first instance and than the laws of men as long as they contradict not the Law of God. It is by the right attitude the subjective woman can gain the man. Namely that, if any obey not God’s Word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.

MInistry in Contemporary Culture – Does Evangelicalism have a Future? (Photo credit: George Fox Evangelical Seminary)

Those discussing the role of the woman in culture and in the church often also claim tradition as a source of authority. But why then do those Christians not take literal translations from the original Scriptures? Should English speaking people not be translating their English Bibles from the LXX since that is what the early church (not to mention the writers of the NT!) considered inspired?

Some of these same Evangelicals boldly proclaim that every book that we have in our canon as Protestants (and onlythe set that wehave in our canon) is without error. Again, where does that leave our sisters and brothers from the early Church (or the Eastern Orthodox tradition which uses the LXX)?

A brief survey of the history of the LXX raises some questions about the way we view Scripture today. For example, is the LXX inspired Scripture even though it’s a translation of a more original textual tradition? If not, then are the fragments that have made it into our NT inspired? Were the scribes who translated Isaiah, for example, quickly taken up in the Spirit while contemplating how to translate the Hebrew word for “young woman” only to have the Spirit leave them shortly after the translation of that single verse?

To make matters even more complicated, the earliest copies of the Hebrew text we have are those of the Masoretes from the 7th to 11th centuries CE. The Masoretes, being faithful preservers of the oral tradition of the Scriptures that were passed on from generation to generation, decided that it was time their tradition be put on paper and so they transcribed the documents that we use today for the translation of our own English Bibles. The fact that we consider the Masoretic Hebrew text to be the authoritative version of the OT is based on the (not small) assumption that the Hebrew oral tradition was indeed successfully passed down from generation to generation completely untarnished. In fact, modern Christian translators are so committed to this assumption that we overlook the fact that the LXX predates the Masoretic Text (MT) by over 1,000 years! Could it not be argued that even though the LXX is a translation of a more original textual tradition it nevertheless ought to be considered more reliable than the MT simply because of its much earlier date of composition?

Men and women should look into that matter and get to know what the Holy Scriptures can tell them about their positions they do have to take.
They should get to remember where the words came from in what sort of language and how that language was used. Getting to know the proverbs of that language they should get a fluid and organic understanding of what Scripture is to begin with. Many may think lots of fallible and erranthuman beings were involved in “making up what some consider to be an infallible and/or inerrantgroup of texts.”

Though we should trust the Higher Being who let His Words to be written down for future generations so that they could learn from it. We should look at Jesus who kept to the Words of his Father and considered Them to be set apart (holy) and inspired, bearing witness to the God many believe was fully revealed in the person of Jesus. but those who take Jesus to be God look over the Words of the Father who calls that Jewish man His son and not Himself. It are doctrines like the Holy Trinity, twisting of the Words of God, church teachings of flat earth a.o. things people did have to believe which undermined the credibility of the Holy Scriptures.

To say it is authoritative means that as a body of believers we are committed to reading the text and rereading it, both devotionally and liturgically, wrestling with it, discussing it over a meal, and maybe even at times disagreeing with it but never, despite all the frustrations it may cause us, doing away with it. In other words, the authority of the Bible is not something it inherently holds but is something we grant it as the Church. The Bible is authoritative because we say it’s authoritative and we need no reason beyond that. And none of this has anything to do with whether or not there are any mistakes in the Bible or if it’s scientifically or historically accurate or if the virgin birth was based on a mistranslation.

Mistranslation or not, people should always go and look what is behind the words, written in black and white,or some also in colour ink. then they would find out that the Bible is not as difficult to read and understand as they first thought. When willingness is there to take the words for what they say, everything shall become clear, and than people will see that the Bible always told the truth and brings a message to believe in, giving us enough indication what to do with our life, how us to behave and which roles we do have to take.

Man can find solutions and guidance for their position and should be aware of the role the Creator had for each of us, men and women.

Related articles

Wayne’s World Without Women Pastors (bltnotjustasandwich.com)
Wayne Grudem’s and Barry Asmus’s book may fall into the hands of women who are church leaders, even pastors, in poor nations.
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As we move out from the church and the home we move further from what is fairly clear and explicit to what is more ambiguous and inferential…. When it comes to all the thousands of occupations and professions, with their endlessly varied structures of management, God has chosen not to be specific about which roles men and women should fill…. For this reason we focus (within some limits) on how these roles are carried out rather than which ones are appropriate.
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The godly women portrayed in the Old Testament are always seen as submissive to the leadership of their husbands. In fact Peter sees a pattern in their behavior that Christian wives should imitate, for he says, “For … Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord….”

Dear White Christian Leaders, Don’t Do It. (davidswanson.wordpress.com)
Last week brought disheartening news from white-evangelical-church-world. A well-publicized men’s conference was reported to have used both women and gay people as punchlines to jokes told from the stage. And, in An Open Letter from the Asian American Community to the Evangelical Church, a group of influential Asian American Christians pointed out a bunch of instances of racial stereotyping by different evangelical conferences, publishing houses, and pastors. For those paying attention – and/or on the receiving end of these offensive and marginalizing stereotypes – it seems impossible that these things keep happening. How is it that many Christian leaders of the evangelical-ish variety are continuing with language, images, and assumptions that are so unloving? It’s crazy, right?

Staying Married Is Not About Staying in Love, Part 1 by John Piper (davidandleahweathers.wordpress.com)
what it means for a Married couple to Truly be “One Flesh”, as God commands Marrieds to be in Several places in the Bible, starting in Genesis 2:24. Becoming One Flesh is what we Strive for in our own Marriage. But while we hear lip service paid to it, the high divorce rates, as well as the way we see Marrieds treat each other– even among professing Christian couples – suggest that it is indeed lip service only. Finding an example of a True “One Flesh” union is nearly impossible!

Responding to the Gay Agenda (rethinkingtheology.com)
The first thing you may want to do is to familiarize yourself with the details of the “gay agenda” (click HERE). Then think carefully about the components of it and ask yourself if the society envisioned by the homosexual apologists is the kind of society you want for yourself, for your children and for your grandchildren. Do you want your children and grandchildren to be indoctrinated and recruited into an abnormal, unnatural, immoral lifestyle that is inherently harmful to their health and will not produce grandchildren and great grandchildren for you to enjoy and love? Do you want our churches to be infiltrated by their heretical and damning theology and filthy morals? Do you want to be punished legally for merely disagreeing with them?

New controversies in Evangelical theology (patheos.com)
Evangelicals today are being torn by some major theological controversies. The debate between Calvinists and Wesleyans is getting more and more heated. Then there is a related debate between “Traditionists,” who believe Christians should hold onto the traditions of the historic church (particularly the decisions of the early church councils0 and the “Meliorists,” who reject holding onto traditions and believe the church can get better and better. The Calvinists tend to be Traditionists (who themselves can be divided between “Biblicists” and “Paleo-Conservatives”) and the Wesleyans tend to be Meliorists.

Church History (daltonmoore116.wordpress.com)
The body of Christ suffers when believers are not accountable to each other and when they are not saturated in the Word of God, both inside the church and outside the church. I feel this way because in my opinion so many of the problems that the church faced throughout history, specifically in theology, could have been avoided or handled better if believers were accountable in their walks. Now whether or not this was truly the case I am not sure, but one thing I do know is that time spent in the Word and accountability are crucial in the walk of a Christian and without them problems are inevitable.

This studies the role of the man and woman in a biblical manner: more complementarian, and therefore hierarchical, or egalitarian? I really want to read this book… I have no idea what it will say or what God will show me through it, but yeah. I really want to read this book.

Qumran Pt 2: Why do the Dead Sea Scrolls Matter? (glanier.wordpress.com)
Though scholarship is still unfolding even today regarding the Scrolls’ origins, interpretation, history, etc., we at least have the benefit of over sixty years of perspective to evaluate the findings. That said, the Scrolls can be a bit of a hot-button issue (both in the scholarly world and the church), so I will try to be as balanced and critically sensitive as possible. I will cover three main topics and my standard concluding set of implications:

Dan Wallace of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts has an interesting article offering evidence that the transmission of the New Testament text wasn’t merely linear—that is, it wasn’t like a child’s game of “Telephone” (or “Chinese Whispers,” for our European friends), where one person tells the next person, and he tells the next, and so on.
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By the middle of the second century, when canon conscientiousness was on the rise, the Christian community regarded the autographs, or at least the earliest copies of the New Testament documents, as important witnesses. They were concerned about the purity of the text with regard to select textual variants. Most likely, this implies that the copying of the manuscripts in the early decades of the Christian faith was not that of strictly linear descent (one copy of another copy of another copy). Rather, there would be times when at least a few scribes would want to check behind their exemplar and look at its exemplar. This would especially occur whenever a disputed reading cropped up. So, there seems to have been a bit of a check on the quality of the transmission of the text from very early on.

Men and Women: Equal yet Different (hillsbiblechurch.org)
Gender is important because God created male and female (Gen. 1:27).
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Some men have either become domineering or passive, whereas some women have become usurping and bought into the lie of a false sense of liberation. The truth is, only the Word of God provides a right understanding of gender. Such an understanding will provide true liberation as men and women function as God designed.

The dignity of the office of housewife is today by many forgotten. Many men are not conscious what a work it demands to keep the household running properly. there are men who wanted their wives to work outside the house, but who are not willing to take on themselves the jobs in the house. Instead many married men do expect to have the woman working to bring in extra money plus doing all the household tasks.

If we want to see gender equality we do have to find the household jobs being done by men and women, both sharing in equal tasks.

Equality (film), a short film produced and directed by Al Sutton, MD in 2010, that documents the largest gender equality strike in U.S. History, The Women’s Strike for Equality of 1970. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When we look at creation, the first woman, Eve, was provided as Adam’s complement, or counterpart, by the Creator. She was not created as a minor to the first man Adam. the divine Maker of all things, the ElohimHashemJehovahGod assigned to the mannin or first woman an honourable role in the family arrangement. She was to be a part of God’s purpose for them to produce children and care for them as well as to take care of the earth and its animals. She would provide the intellectual stimulus and support of a true companion.

26And God* went on to say: “Let us+ make* man* in our image,*+ according to our likeness,+ and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every moving animal that is moving upon the earth.”+27And God proceeded to create the man in his image, in God’s image he created him;+ male and female he created them.+28Further, God blessed+ them and God said to them: “Be fruitful+ and become many and fill the earth and subdue+ it, and have in subjection+ the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving* upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28)

23Then the man said: “This is at last bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh.+ This one will be called Woman,* Because from man* this one was taken.”+ (Genesis 2:23.)

Today we have become a society where mothers are commonly made to feel that being a homemaker and caring for children is a second-class occupation. Women are made feeling guilty when they would prefer to look for the children. The world does not mind to see the children dropped at the crèche or childcare early in the morning, and to get them at the end of the day just to put them back into bed. Though they do not want that the childminders interfere with upbringing or that the educators at school give an education in ethical behaviour. Because of that we do have already three generations where we can find no guided social behaviour, creating several problems in social behaviour and finding ways to live together with others. Resulting in anti-social behaviour.

Some men and women feel that a woman needs a career outside the home in order to realize her full potential.

Through history we can see that the Divine Creator established guidelines for what women could do and as to how they were to be treated. For example, Israelite mothers were to be shown honor and not to be treated with contempt. If a son ‘called down evil upon his father and his mother,’ he would be subject to the death penalty. Christian youths were urged to be “obedient to [their] parents.”

3 “‘YOU should fear each one his mother and his father,*+ and my sabbaths YOU should keep.+ I am Jehovah YOUR God. (Leviticus 19:3)

9“‘In case there should be any man who calls down evil upon his father and his mother,+ he should be put to death without fail.+ It is his father and his mother upon whom he has called down evil. His own blood* is upon him.+ (Leviticus; 20:9)

Children in the early times learned to be obedient to their parents and to those who got guidance over them, like their teachers. This does not seem to be appropriate any more today, and that iw why so much is going wrong in our society.

6Children, be obedient* to YOUR parents+ in union+ with [the] Lord,* for this is righteous:+(Ephesians 6:1)

16“‘Honor your father and your mother,+ just as Jehovah your God has commanded you; in order that your days may prove long and it may go well with you+ on the ground that Jehovah your God is giving you. (Deuteronomy 5:16)

16“‘Cursed is the one who treats his father or his mother with contempt.’+ (And all the people must say, ‘Amen!’) (Deuteronomy 27:16)

17The eye that holds a father in derision and that despises obedience to a mother+—the ravens of the torrent valley will pick it out and the sons of the eagle will eat it up. (Proverbs 30:17.)

Men and women sitting on mats on the floor, reading books to edify themselves. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Father an mother were placed on the same level, and children did not have to honour their father more than their mother. Under the husband’s direction, the mother was to be the educator of both daughters and sons. A son was commanded ‘not to forsake the law of his mother.’

20 Observe, O my son, the commandment of your father,+ and do not forsake the law of your mother.+ (Proverbs 6:20)

Also, Proverbs chapter 31 provides “the weighty message that [King Lemuel’s] mother gave to him in correction.” She wisely directed her son to avoid improper use of alcoholic beverages, saying: “It is not for kings to drink wine or for high officials to say: ‘Where is intoxicating liquor?’ that one may not drink and forget what is decreed and pervert the cause of any of the sons of affliction.”(Proverbs 31:1, 4, 5.)

The apostlePaul let his brethren know he also listened to his mother and grandmother and demanded that they also did that. (2 Timothy 1:5) It is from childhood that the basics of faith and the way of life should be given, to the babe, the teen, the adolescent, so that the young adult can remember how his or her parents and teachers brought wisdom to them. From infancy the children should have to learn about the way they do have to continue in their life. From infancy they have to known the Holy Scriptures, that are able to make them wise unto salvation through faith in ChristJesus.

15and that from infancy+ you have known the holy writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation+ through the faith in connection with Christ Jesus.+ (2 Timothy 3:15)

In our society of men and women some may think it does not matter any more if men or going to live together with other men or women with other women. In the provision for manhood is foreseen that young man would find young woman and would contemplate going to live together under a bond called marriage. Considering such a bond the young man would be wise to consider the description of “a capable wife” that was given by King Lemuel’s mother, who said: “Her value is far more than that of corals.” Then, after describing the important contribution that such a wife makes to a household, the king’s mother said: “Charm may be false, and prettiness may be vain; but the woman that fears Jehovah is the one that procures praise for herself.” (Proverbs 31:10-31) Clearly, our Creator made women to occupy a position of honour and responsibility in the family.

In cultures where men received an education centred on the man, we can observe the mistreatment of and lack of respect for women. In places where it is accepted that the woman has to offer something very valuable to the community, people look at those women with respect.

We learn so much from mothers — habits that stand us in good stead throughout life, good manners so essential for good relationships, and in many cases a moral and spiritual upbringing that keeps youths on course.

Women should be proud and show their kids and husbands their reason for making our world a righteous place where every person can be treated equally respectful. The should find joy in loving their husbands, loving their children, and should besensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonoured. (Titus 2:4-5)

+++

“Mother and Child” by Henriette Browne; Wollstonecraft envisioned motherhood as a liberating role for women. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related articles

Francis Frangipane: A Special Word to the Women of God (soundofheavenblog.wordpress.com)
When the Lord created humankind, He placed unique graces in man and separate but equally unique graces in woman. He told Adam to name the species of life on earth “and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name” (Genesis 2:19).
+
Within the genetics of this original man, there also existed the powerful, but dormant, qualities of the woman. While Adam slept the Spirit took from the man a rib. Fashioning it into a woman, the Lord created for Adam a companion. Not only was she suitable for him, but she powerfully expanded man’s creative capacities. Indeed, the woman brought many new graces into Adam’s world that did not formerly exist – the foremost of which was the power to conceive and give birth.
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The term woman was a delineation used by Adam, identifying her as a unique variation in the species of man. My wife says, “Think of her as the upgrade.” In some ways, she is right, for the nature of the woman was twice refined. Adam was created of earth; the woman emerged not from the earth but from the man. She is both more complex and emotionally sophisticated.
+
Eve enlivened Adam in ways no other creature on earth could. Adam could build a house; Eve made it a home. When Adam named Eve “Life,” he was not only speaking prophetically of the first mother, but he was speaking out of his own experience: Eve brought life into the structure of Adam’s world.

Polygenism is Problematic – A Catholic Caution on another Aspect of Evolutionary Theory (adw.org)Polygenism is a theory of human origins positing that the human race descended from a pool of early human couples, indeterminate in number. Hence, this theory, Adam and Eve are merely symbols of Mankind. Rather than being an historical couple, they represent the human race as it emerges from the hominids that gave rise to them as they become homo sapiens, properly speaking.This is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity in Adam and Eve. In this understanding, Adam and Eve are historical figures who actually existed and from them alone the whole of the human race is descended.

Genesis 3:15 (biblebeastswheatweeds.com)
More than 4,000 years after Jehovah’s original prophecy, the promised Seed appeared. It was Jesus. (Galatians 3:16) As a perfect man, Jesus kept his integrity to the death and thus proved that Satan’s accusations were lies. In addition, since Jesus was sinless, his death was a sacrifice of great value. By means of it, Jesus provided deliverance from sin and death for faithful descendants of Adam and Eve. Jesus’ death on the torture stake was the ‘bruising in the heel’ of the promised Seed.—Hebrews 9:11-14.

When Family Matters Most (r16sixteen.wordpress.com)
He created a perpetual (until the return of the Savior) renewing of family. The family structure is important. It is a beautiful union of lives meant to love, care for and support one another. Without family suitable companionship cannot be found.
+
If companionship were suitable outside of marriage and the extension family, then God would not have needed to create the woman to be with the man. But God knew that man needed to be joined together in a companionship which leads to family.
+The Home and Family
We need to define our family as God’s word defines it. We need to constantly be evaluating ourselves within a marriage to see if we are fulfilling our roles properly. We need to be watchful for attacks against our home and family. In fact, we need to be holding God’s word up to ourselves constantly as a father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter, or whatever to see how we are measuring up and how we need to improve.

Roles of men and woman (knowandmakeknown.wordpress.com)
Men and woman have equal but very different roles. Our culture has a skewed look on relationships and the gender roles within them. It has become common in our culture for the woman to be the leader or initiator. It is common for woman to try and manipulate situations to get a guy to like or pursue her. It is normal for woman to initiate contact with man first. It is common for men to get by with being lazy or coward. It is common for men to be aggressive and abusive. I so easily forget where I cam from, where mankind came from. In the Garden of Eden we see the roles of man and woman and the consequences of not fulfilling those roles.

We Are Equal. (cutedollars.wordpress.com)
nowhere in all the creation accounts – from Biblical accounts to Greek stories of human creation to Charles Darwin’s theory of human evolution – was woman said to be inferior to the man.
By Biblical accounts, when God created Adam and Eve, he made them one. Not one then half, but one as a whole, signifying equality.
+
To understand gender inequality and its inherent dangers, let’s take a look at the meaning of gender inequality.
Gender inequality is the unequal treatment or discrimination of individuals based on their gender.
The problems with gender inequality stem primarily from traditional gender role playing. Girls do house chores; boys do not cook; boys construct and build; girls internally decorate and beautify.
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Psychological and financial dependence on others are the bedrock upon which domestic violence thrive. The importance of a career or means of livelihood for the woman, single or married, cannot be overemphasized.

Women Othered in Genesis (genderandsexualitycore.wordpress.com)
though she was created to be “his partner” she is instructed that he is the superior human being, and that her “desire shall be for [her] husband, and he shall rule over [her]” (2:7-18; 3:16).
+
Eve can be construed as wiser than Adam for eating from the tree but it is also important to note that the default human being is male and that God is referred to throughout Genesis with male or gender neutral pronouns and never female pronouns. Most of the passages detailing genealogy focus on or only mention male names and Adam and Eve as a couple are often defined by the male in the relationship, referred to as “the man and his wife” rather than “the man and the woman” or “the woman and her husband.”

Urmila Home Manager – Dignifying Domestic Work (saath.wordpress.com)
According to National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), In 2009-10, estimated total number of domestic worker in India is around 2.52 million out of this 2/3 reside in urban areas and 57% of them are women. So in the last 10 years there is almost 75% increase in domestic workers mostly accounted for by women. Domestic work has historically been viewed as the realm of the woman with crucial household chores continuing to be either being unpaid (if performed by a household’s women) or underpaid (if outsourced to a domestic worker). Though Gujarat as a State is booming economically, the informal sector and amongst these, domestic work is still a sector where there is a lot of work that needs to be done. Their situation remains the same as for many across India – no bargaining power, no leave, no legal access, sexual harassment, over worked, and underpaid. Moreover there is no platform through which these women can come together to demand their rights.

Recent Posts from Christadelphians for you about: Messiah For All

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